A reader emailed me to ask how to speed up the process of healing from child abuse. The reader has grown weary of the healing process and wants to fast-track the process to get it over with. I can completely relate to this because I said the same things many times myself. My therapy used to tell me to “slow down,” and I would respond, “Why would I possibly want to endure this process any longer than I have to?”
If you want to speed the process of healing from child abuse along, you need to stop fighting yourself. You need to choose to believe every memory that surfaces, even those that seem “unbelievable,” and you need to process the emotions that come with them. You have to stop fighting the tide and, instead, release yourself into the current of your healing process. When you stop setting up your own roadblocks, the healing process develops its own rhythm, and you will move through the process faster.
The thought of not fighting the memories is terrifying to many child abuse survivors, especially those in the early stages of healing. The more you have fought them, the scarier the prospect becomes. This is because, as you actively block the memories through denial, cutting, binge eating, etc., your subconscious mind has to work even harder to push the memories out. So, from your perspective, it appears that letting go is going to cause the lid to blow off the pressure cooker and explode all over your life.
When you first let go, it might actually feel that way – It did for me. I had six weeks of feeling like I was being pulled down into an abyss, and I had no idea how I would survive this or even if I wanted to. Then, the clouds parted, and I felt the warmth of the sun inside of myself for the first time ever. It only lasted for a few hours, but it gave me the hope I needed to hang in there while the healing process ran its course.
I know how scary it is to let go and trust that the healing process knows what it is doing. However, if you truly want to “get this healing over with,” that’s the way you do it.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
i think you should re-write this particular message often. reiterate, reinforce, remind. I feel like I am crazy. I need my therapist to be confident and supportive and to help me name. I need him to understand how unsafe I feel in minutes each day. It takes so much energy to work and be “normal” and then i have to recluse myself and sit in quiet. i am not afraid anymore, the danger is clearly gone from those years, but the matching feelings , inviting emotions to tell their truths is devastating. Each instance that spells out for me how my understanding of my life was wrong is unbearable. I can’t hold it. So the cutting, and sometimes I write from another voice to my therapist. Someones inside of me recognize him as a friend to us and as we go through these times, melding ages together, they are both relieved and frantically fearful that he is actually in those places with me and we don’t want him to be in the danger we are just now crawling through the realities of. Yes, the memories continue to open and unfold. 4 years old -11. and those years put into place living habits that continue even now. I have learned a lot, but that foundational learning is sticky, mucky, and we had to follow it or things would be worse and threats would be followed through with. How ridiculous it feels to say that i am so afraid of being abandoned when i have a work staff who loves me and a church and daughters who love me? Yet, it is still there, and that is where I see therapy being needed at length. Rememories, adding the depth from all aspects hidden at the time, and finding out how to keep going and moving on. I have no idea if this is the day i just can’t do it anymore. then, a wisp of doable comes wafting by and that determined truth and need takes a nap. But it always wakes up. Days that start with an anvil are harder ones. Keep telling us we aren’t crazy, keep telling us this is how it goes, keep validating our experiences and keep showing us through your own steps how it goes up and down and up and down but keep showing us that somehow it is worth it. I am so regretful of mistakes I made because of faulty thinking. i am so regretful of failed marriages due to my making wrong choices in men. I carry such guilt for just being. Such a long way to go…..
Go slow as fast as you can.
For us a big part of it was to understand that we can not sleep and still be very tired. We had to learn that. I now sleep when I can. I never experienced what is described as depression it was Dx as depression it was really exhaustion.
I can walk our my door right now or even sit here and not sleep until at least 6:00 to tomorrow morning. Then sleep for 15 min and do it again. My body developed in such a way that I can do that.
I am going to write for a bit and then sleep for probably three hours.
Does not seem possible does it? It is.
I accept that my body did not develop the same way as someones body that did not experience my life. It takes time for my body to develop differently. It takes an incredible amount of energy.
My body can not develop until after I process the trauma. In a real way doing now what my situation did not allow during the trauma.
I find it helpful to know it is Post Traumatic Stress. The results happened because of the trauma the results happened when I was trying to process the trauma the first time not during the trauma.
Hey Faith, Aggiemonday and Michael,
couldnt agree more and Thanks for making me feel understood cos I can relate to all that you said! and its great to finally be able to relate to:)
Five years ago when I began my healing process, I had a FLOOD of feelings, memories, nightmares, etc…that were simply so overwhelming I thought I would die. In speaking with my therapist, I was fortunate enough to check in to a two-week intensive trauma program. Afterwards, I took another month off work and had therapy appts twice a week. I was so determined to “heal” as fast a I could. Fast forward five years later….I feel I have most of the emotions processed, but find I constantly am growing and healing ( I love that tho). I am truly committed to being the best person I can be. Interestingly, I continue to binge it. I realize I am still stuffing some memories/emotions, and know in time I will need to deal with them. At this point, I am not in such a hurry any more. I enjoy my “breaks” in between processing. You will reach a point that you begin to feel “normal”. I promise.
AllyValentino,
“You will reach a point that you begin to feel “normal”. I promise.”
Now you went and scared me. Smile
Michael
Keep in mind…this is my definition of “normal”!
Ha! 🙂
very bored of trying to heal, only to go back a long way over the slightest thing. trying to cope with exams atm and today, after getting home from an exam that i thought didn’t go very well, i did not cry, i scoured my body for bruises, then spent hours meticulously covering them to look like natural skin. i have repeatedly been feeling physical pain, along with fear, insted of my nighttime flashbacks (although i get these sometimes too) i get the pain memories in the day too, which is very difficult when im around other people. its so frutrating trying to cope, i feel like now the abuse is over, i should not be scared or in pain anymore and its annoying that my body is now doing this to me. nobody else i know is trying to do all this stuff and yet they all claim to be ‘barley coping’ its not fair that i have to do this too!!!! sorry for the rant, just had a hard day. keep well x
Yes, I am the reader that asked the question, and no, I still don’t understand! I don’t understand how ‘NOT to fight!’ I don’t understand how your suppose to open yourself up, and willingly INVITE more pain! That doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t know how not to fight the memories! Isn’t that something that is naturally in a person–not to invite pain? So how is someone who has already experienced more than a life time of pain, suppose to be able to welcome it?!? It terrifies me to even think that there could possibly be anything else that I haven’t remembered–but yet, there is ALWAYS something else. I can’t comprehend or deal with the things that I do know, much less the things that haven’t come to me yet. And it doesn’t help me to tell me that I am ‘safe now!’ Okay, those things aren’t PHYSICALLY happening now, but mentally, and emotionally–IT IS! All I feel is pain. The memories ARE pain, the nightmares ARE pain, the flashbacks, the terror, the fear–it ALL translates to pain in the eyes of a child! When I am going through all of this (even if its in my head), I’m going through it as the CHILD me, NOT the ADULT me! There is a HUGE difference!!!
theresa i dont know if itl help but read what i wrote under the ‘dealing with floods of memories emotions’ post by faith. i was reambling some. ive had a beyond hard time since trying to address my own emotions i had following my request of faith to post a question i asked on being pregnant by abuser. it sent me into such a state of anxiety and pain and sadness and i ran and hid. it didnt work. many hugs sent your way. i do care. i really do. ive been thru incomprehensible things also. i relate. malanie
Hi Theresa,
reading your comment prompted me to think: this is exactly how to do it! I did it that way. I went like: Im not gonna deal with all this crap!!I wont feel this f*****, s**** pain, I WILL NOT feel any of it!! For me I had to start with the pain of the prospective to one day have to deal with all that s*** that was my life. I had to give myself permission to so not be willing to “heal” at all and to fight my feelings with all my might. Once I was able to voice my huge resistance, it turned out to be my greatest ally. Why? Because I started connecting with myself(the one that hadnt wanted any of that crap in the first place)and that is when the healing started for me. Healing for me is being able to say: I do NOT want that!! be it healing, or feeling or pain or whatever. You can look at it like being a three-year-old who throws a tantrum or who simply doesnt want to do something. He throws in his whole being into NOT wanting something. Most of us here did not get this chance to experience this. We were either deprived of or abused for our ability to dislike something and voice it.
Just my thoughts, hope I didnt get carried away.
I don’t see myself as 3 year old throwing a tantrum. I see myself as someone who absolutely 100% scared to death of feeling the emotions and the pain that go along with it! I can’t wrap my head around the idea of WANTING to feel pain.
Hi, Theresa.
I don’t think anyone “wants” to feel pain. Instead, you reach a place of recognizing that feeling the pain beats the alternative. For example, I have yet to meet someone who “wants” to go through chemo, but they do it because the alternative is dying from cancer. They endure nausea, vomiting, and hair loss not because they want to go through those things but because it is the price to pay for beating cancer and life.
– Faith
Hi Theresa,
sorry, I didnt realize how the “You can think of it…” would come across! and no judging of your pain intended! what I meant was that I used the mental image of me being a furious three year old to help me connect with my inner child and to say”no, I do NOT want that.” I needed to learn that first to be able to say “yes” to other things.
Hi Theresa,
I can relate so much to how you mentioned that it is the CHILD in you who is going through these memories. One thing that helped me when I was in the painful place that you described was to become my own loving parent. I started a journal where I would allow the child in me to write with my non-dominant hand (talk about a flood of memory), and then I would respond to the child as a loving parent writing with my dominant hand. I said all the things to myself that I wish I would have heard as a child “I believe you”, “It’s not your fault”, “I’m so sorry this happened to you”, “I wish I could have stopped it”, “I will keep you safe from now on”, etc.
It was very powerful and healing for me to maintain this constant dialog. Someone was finally in my corner – and it was me.
How do you that for yourself, when you never had that, or was taught how to do it?
maybe a good way to look at this is to compare it to a cancer that you can choose to fight. or not. if you fight back at the evil memories or cancer and let your body, mind, spirit, soul heal…then you get to live. really live. but if you dont try to accept the pain that that fighting back and healing will bring in order to get to your cure… you wont live. you will just exist. and continue going thru anxiety, pain, hurt, fear, trauma, memories, dreams , flashbacks. i dont know. im up too late and ive slept too much after my self imposed 3 day agoraphobia break from life. faith, you dont have to post these 2 comments. but….i am hoping someone gets something out of them. and p.s. sorry to all. i can spell. i just cant type well. malanie. nite..
I know of, and have seen a lot of people that had cancer, and fought like hell to beat it–they did all the drugs, the surgery, the chemo, and radiation, and they still LOST the battle! ‘Accepting’ the pain doesn’t make it easier, or mean that you will ‘get to live,’ it only means that you have to hurt to longer, and HOPE that it changes something!
Hi, Theresa.
I have also seen a lot of people who fought like hell and beat the cancer! You have to think the fight is worth fighting for to do it. I know two women (both mothers of elementary-age children) who went through surgery & chemo and beat the cancer in the past couple of years. They would say the fight was completely worth it because they are still around to raise their kids.
– Faith
@Theresa With child sexual assault, we’ve already survived it. Unless I were to kill myself, I’m not going to die of it now, and I have a choice about that.
Healing sometimes is more like vomiting when you’re nauseous, not the most pleasant thing, but it does take care of the nausea. Accepting and feeling the pain does clear it out, does make it lessen. That’s my experience, and I think Faith is saying that is hers too.
It’s not fair that the abuser does the damage and then we have to clean it up, but that’s the situation.
Part of the thing is that feeling-memories from childhood feel really huge and overwhelming, because that’s how a child experiences them. Add in flashbacks, and I know I felt like I was literally being haunted. I remember feeling that I’d go crazy if I allowed myself to feel it all. I didn’t. The child feeling memories being so overwhelming can trick us into thinking that the feelings themselves are dangerous. They’re not, but getting into them without support can be retraumatizing, so having a good therapist or support group is necessary. I think you might find that if you have good support it will be a lot more bearable.
It does get better. It really does. Hang in there.
SDW
I used to try and be ‘ace recovery girl’ to do everything right to heal faster better than average. I like to think it made some difference, but eventually it is no longer necessary to work that hard.
I’ve slowed down now. I don’t go digging for gunk, but I make a rule to never flinch from it if something presents for healing. I’ve been healing for 20+ years and I expect to heal for 20+ more and I’m totally fine with that. This is a long distance thing not a sprint.
Recovery from child sexual assault is lifelong, it’s not like healing a broken leg, more like living with diabetes.
However, the ’emergency stage’ doesn’t last forever, and after that things lighten up or go in waves. I don’t think there is any way to hurry it up, but lots of ways to impede it (stuffing with drugs or food, denial, life-drama).
Hi, SDW.
I love the analogies you used! Thank you for sharing them. :0)
– Faith